Correctly installed skylights can be beautiful

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Skylights get a bad rap, and sometimes it’s deserved.

After all, installing a skylight means cutting a hole in a roof, and poorly installed skylights may leak. But when a skylight is done right, it can be a mood-lifting thing of beauty.

“You’re able to capture light in a totally different fashion beyond vertical windows,” said Kansas City, Mo., architect Susan Richards Johnson. “There’s nothing that compares to the quality of natural light.”

Johnson likes skylights best when their design ventures beyond the old-school plastic bubble on the exterior and plain square hole on the interior. She suggests adding discrete auxiliary lighting, such as low-voltage rope or fiber optic, to enhance the drama of the skylight at night. Painting the skylight shaft also adds interest.

Skylights work especially well in older homes, Johnson said, because most don’t have the tall windows of newer houses and can benefit from more natural light. Her clients have used them in windowless bathrooms and in master bedrooms that use attic space.

Kathy Walters of Kansas City, Mo., added a ridgeline skylight to her kitchen more than a decade ago when she added on to her 1920s Tudor revival house. The skylight, made by Sunglo Skylights of Kansas City, Mo., runs the length of the kitchen and acts as a symbolic bridge between the old and new parts of the house, said Johnson, the architect of Walters’ remodel. “I love it because it really opens up the kitchen,” Walters said.

In more than 10 years, the fabric on Walters’ island stools has not faded, something that can happen with skylights. Sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, though, the kitchen becomes too bright.

More people are adding shades and blinds to their skylights so brightness isn’t an issue, said skylight installer Ron Ethridge of Glenaire in Clay County, Mo. The shades and blinds can be operated manually with a long pole or electronically with a remote control. Some skylights are available in “smart glass” that can be darkened with a dimmer switch, said David Dobbins, head of the roofing division of Brown Restoration in Raymore in Cass County, Mo.

Ethridge sees some people opting for tubular skylights, which resemble a recessed canned light and typically come in 10- to 22-inch diameters. They fit between rafters and ceiling joists, making them easier to install than conventional skylights. “They fit a need when you have an attic with something blocking a direct pathway,” he said.

Clients commonly use tubular skylights in long, dark hallways and in closets. Dobbins thinks they also work well to lighten dark corners of living rooms.

Alinda Murphy of Raytown, Mo., had Ethridge install tubular skylights in both her bathrooms. “They were totally dark before,” she said. “Now I don’t have to turn on the light in those rooms. I save a little on my electric bill.”

Murphy also replaced the tinted plastic skylight in her vaulted entryway with a glass one. “It was like looking outside a window wearing sunglasses,” she said. “I like it a lot better now. There’s kind of a nice, eerie glow when there’s a full moon.”